Free as a Bird
by DinoDina
Summary: Ianto has a way to get out of Thames House when things go pear-shaped, much to Jack's surprise. Janto oneshot. CoE fix-it :D


Jack stared at the chamber in which the 456 were writhing in victory. They were cruel and manipulative, but surely they hadn't released an unknown, fast-acting virus into the building. There were hundreds of people inside!—Ianto included.

He stepped forward, gun raised, and saw Ianto do the same out of the corner of his eye. He'd shoot through the chamber and take the 456 with him into death.

Except that it didn't work. Because of course the chamber was bullet-proof. And time was passing. He stopped for a moment—just enough time to formulate a plan, however shoddy it was. Not even a plan, not really, just desperate words to buy some more time.

Jack glanced sideways at Ianto to draw some strength from him. The virus was in the air already, he could feel it, but he wasn't about to give up; giving up to the 456 would mean losing Ianto. So Jack's plan wasn't exactly to give up—it was to grovel and plea for a cure and hope that it was given in time.

But where he was expecting to find a defiant and self-sacrificing Ianto lowering his weapon, Jack found Ianto only slightly changed: he aimed at the window, now, and as he ran towards where the window had been, Jack saw his waistcoat tear at the back to expose a pair of wings. And then Ianto was gone.

It was the virus. Definitely. A hallucination or something. Jack's eyes closed and he fell to the ground.

What a stupid way to go.

But it would have been nice for the wings to have been real, for Ianto to have gotten away.

.oOo.

Jack woke up and saw red. He was angry, yes, but was the cloth over him. A red cloth. He couldn't be the only one in the room; the silence was deafening. If this whole disaster were public, he'd want to die to escape the mourning.

He took off the shroud and lay there. The ceiling was so far away. Someone took his hand; a small hand—Gwen's, then.

And to think that he'd hoped it would be Ianto.

Gwen bent over to hug him and her lips brushed against his ear. "He's outside."

Jack's head snapped up and he jumped backwards out of the hug to sit. The world spun, but Jack gritted his teeth against it and looked around: no Ianto.

That was a good sign, wasn't it?

He stood on wobbly legs and let Gwen lead him out past the bodies and the sullen guards. The sunlight burned, so Jack shut his eyes. It was doing nothing good to the post-death hangover. And just like that—when Jack was just preparing to open his eyes again—a hand dropped on his arm, a much more familiar hand than Gwen's.

"I'm sorry I left you."

And there was that much more familiar voice—a rich baritone full of gorgeous vowels—and Jack opened his eyes to see Ianto in a new shirt and waistcoat.

The words got stuck in Jack's throat and he pulled Ianto into a hug instead. How was he supposed to be mad when he'd come so close to losing him? Jack still had questions, but there was a time and a place for interrogations. At the moment, there was only one question that mattered.

He gestured to the UNIT soldiers behind Ianto. "What's going on?"

"I convinced them not to arrest you. The rest of the British government may have gone postal, but at least UNIT's on our side. For once. They're waiting for your command," Ianto smiled teasingly, "Captain."

"Oh, you know what that does to me," Jack whispered. He stood straight and said louder: "The command center?"

"Accessible by the helicopter currently at our disposal."

Ianto pointed to where it stood, and Jack immediately remembered. "You could fly there even without it, couldn't you?"

Ianto nodded sheepishly. "I _did_ mean to tell you."

Jack took his hand instead of voicing anything they'd have time to discuss later, and hoped that there would be a later for the conversation to happen in.

.oOo.

The UNIT command center was exactly as sexy as most command centers. The atmosphere was urgent and dark, the leading commanders were not at all happy to give up their authority to Jack, and the lighting did nothing for Jack's tan. Between setting up monitoring outposts and getting in touch with trusted government contacts, Jack swiped a red cap and sent Ianto a wink.

With little idea how to defeat the 456, Jack set the center running smoothly and called Ianto outside.

Ianto leaned against the building. "Thanks. I needed a break."

"I know. I'm sorry I dragged you into this."

"You didn't. Torchwood did. I chose to support you, knowing exactly what I was getting into, and I wouldn't change it. Not for the world." Ianto held Jack's gaze. He was breaking into a smile at the same time as Jack, and Jack was beginning to think exclusively sappy thoughts when Ianto broke eye contact and bent over to cough painfully into his elbow.

Jack's heart dropped into his stomach. He grabbed Ianto's arm and moved over to help. "Ianto—"

"I'm fine." Ianto straightened up and waved him away, though Jack remained close. "I've got a faster metabolism than humans, but I need to get the virus out of my system. What's left of it. I'm fine, though, I promise."

"Faster metabolism?"

"Since I'm… you know."

"Right." Jack nodded. He was debating asking, but Gwen's voice from inside reminded him of the urgency of the situation. "I think it's a longer conversation than two minutes."

"Yeah." Ianto cleared his throat and pushed away from the wall. "We should head back."

Jack watched him head to the door. Not wanting to repeat a mistake that had cost him plenty of misunderstandings, he caught Ianto's hand on the way in and shot him a small smile.

.oOo.

Several hours later saw Jack throwing his head back in frustration. He heard Gwen usher Rhys out of the room. They were in the main command center with Lois, now, conferencing with the few international agencies they'd gotten over to their side.

"We'll figure it out," Ianto said from beside him. There was no false bravado there, no false hope. Just Ianto. Jack couldn't imagine making it through the 456's invasion without him.

"Thanks." It shouldn't have helped as much as it did, but Jack opened his eyes nevertheless. "You sure you can't just breathe fire at them or something?"

"I'm part bird, not part dragon."

"Still."

.oOo.

Ianto was still periodically coughing, but the 456 were masters of airborne illnesses, not contagious ones, so the UNIT doctors had cleared him to be in public. That didn't mean Jack wanted him near the 456 ever again, but Ianto was determined to see it through. Selfishly, Jack wanted him there. The 456 had haunted him since 1965, and now it was time for the nightmare to end.

Ianto stopped right in front of Thames House and looked at him. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"It's the only one we've got."

"Right. It's just… the last time we entered Thames House to directly confront the 456, you and about a hundred other people ended up dead and I had to throw myself out the window to escape."

"You didn't throw yourself out the window, you _flew_ out of it."

"My point still stands."

"You're right." Ianto always was. "I'll do it myself. I can't lose you again."

Ianto squeezed his hand, and Jack walked into Thames House alone. How hard would it be? The plan was simple. Deprive the 456 of the atmosphere it needed to survive. It was easy to disconnect or otherwise destroy the tubing pumping said atmosphere into their container. It was much harder to face his fears.

.oOo.

Jack emerged from Thames House coughing and sputtering. The atmosphere of the 456's home planet didn't agree with him, and he collapsed into Ianto's arms, waiting for the fit to pass.

When it did, he met Ianto's eyes with a look full of hope—not only of what the truth between them would bring, but for the future. The danger had passed as well. The 456 were gone.

.oOo.

The reunion between Jack and his daughter was everything he'd hoped for. The meeting of Ianto and Alice… it felt decidedly weird to see his younger-than-his-daughter boyfriend charming said daughter. And grandson. It was good that Ianto was good with Stephen—that was due as much to Ianto being the perfect conversation partner for a young boy interested in science fiction and action films as to the fact that Ianto was as good as a living character in both genres. The wings had come out again.

When he wasn't explaining himself to Alice, Jack was looking at the wings, too.

They were handsome wings, not exactly like that of any bird Jack knew. Black with grey tips, they stayed against Ianto's sides and didn't move unless Stephen asked Ianto to raise them. Ianto had an impressive wingspan. If Jack were to estimate size, he'd guess it to be about the same as the width of Ianto's bed, possibly larger. He was good at eyeballing distance, not size.

They were wonderful wings, though. Jack's heart swelled as Alice stepped away from him and drew Ianto into a conversation. She was still uncomfortable—he could tell by the tension in her shoulders—and so was Ianto, but Stephen served as a great buffer for conversation. Jack hadn't imagined the meeting to go so well, but there were few things about this week that he _had _imagined.

The 456 returning, UNIT placing a price on his head, coming close to losing Ianto, finding out that Ianto had wings…

They were saving the latter for a serious conversation when things quieted down a little, but almost losing Ianto had screwed Jack's head on proper. Though Ianto's secret still hung between them, the awkwardness of the past few weeks was gone. Knowing just how suddenly Ianto could disappear made holding grudges and not communicating just that much less worth it.

.oOo.

Over breakfast the next day, having talked to Ianto about his secret the previous night, Jack decided to get some simple answers.

Toast in hand, he gestured at the wings behind Ianto. "Is that why you're so close to Myfanwy?"

"Partially, I think. It's easier to take her on walks and play with her." They'd found Myfanwy out on a farm, where she'd flown off to hide after the explosion at the Hub. Ianto continued: "I'll keep an eye on her until we rebuild. My nan had some friends in the valleys; I'm sure I can ask them to look after her."

"Is that where your wings are from? Your nan?"

Ianto nodded. "She was wonderful, Jack. Always ready to listen, offer support. No matter what. Always had food ready on the table, too. I was thirteen when she died, so you can imagine how much that mattered."

Ianto's eyes lit up when he talked about her, and it was a pleasure to see. He had few ties outside Torchwood, even family ones, but the deep connection to his nan remained. From what Ianto told him earlier, it seemed that his sister was back in his life as well.

"You can trust her friends. Some of them are like her—like me, I suppose—" Ianto's wings fluttered, "but even the ones that aren't. there's two types of villages: everyone is either fully suspicious of you or fully accepting. It's like with Pat: she's a member of the community, even if she's a giant badger. My nan was much more than her wings."

They'd seen Pat only a few weeks ago. Like when Ianto had told Jack about her, there was more to Ianto having wings than the fact that a secret had been kept. That part was over.

"I have another question."

"What's that?"

"How come I never saw your wings when we were having sex?" Jack leaned across the table and grinned. "Wouldn't they have popped out when things got going?"

"They're not a sex organ, Jack! They don't 'pop out' whenever they feel like it!" Ianto huffed and took a hearty swig of coffee.

Jack thought it had something to do with the fact that they were just talking about Ianto's nan. He waited a minute for Ianto to look less ruffled. "They are capable of coming out during sex, though?"

"Yes."

"Is that a good thing?"

"Yes." Ianto huffed again, but this time for show. Jack recognized the look in his eyes.

He'd already found out about the wings in a more serious environment; now, it was time to learn about them in a more personal manner. After all, with the danger passed, he had all the time in the world—or at least the week the Rift would give them until the next invasion.


End file.
